


The road away from here

by ConceitedDemon



Series: Amphibia one-shots [1]
Category: Amphibia (Cartoon)
Genre: Between Seasons/Series, Description of Injuries, Gen, Humans Are Weird, Species Differences, no beta we all die eventually
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-13
Updated: 2020-11-13
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:48:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27539416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConceitedDemon/pseuds/ConceitedDemon
Summary: Sure, it was nice that they mostly rested the night after the disaster at Toad Tower, especially since Sasha wasn't the only one who had gotten roughed up. But now? This was getting ridiculous.
Relationships: Grime (Disney: Amphibia) & Sasha Waybright
Series: Amphibia one-shots [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2012920
Comments: 8
Kudos: 32





	The road away from here

There's only so long people can stew in their failure, whether that person is a human or a creepy anthropomorphic toad. At first, when the remains of a once mighty army stopped to rest after a barely ten minute walk, still under the shadow of their broken home, Sasha thought it was because almost every toad was mildly to moderately injured. She was pretty moderately injured herself, after getting a nasty cut to the face and falling several stories to be roughly caught by Captain Grime.  
It was understandable to spend the rest of the night recovering, since it hurt quite a bit to breathe, pulling on bruises that bloomed underneath her armor, and the fact that a sharp wave of pain radiated out from the right side of her face every time she tried to frown or talk or wince. For once, she was grateful that she had fumbled her phone off of a cliff the first day in this damn world, because she really didn't want to see what she looked like right now and the urge to turn a camera on would probably be unbearable. It obviously wasn't great, since Percy blanched when he saw her and Grime kept shooting her an undecipherable look. Sasha was good at reading people, not toads, okay?  
As for the emotional pain, well, the less said about that the better. At least anger was productive.  
The sun rose over the valley, and Sasha was aching all over and ready to get a move on. Luckily, Grime felt the same way, and the toads hobbled away from their slapdash campsite before the heat and humidity became unbearable. And then promptly stopped their march after barely thirty minutes, every toad huffing and out of breath.  
"Wait, what's the problem? Don't tell me the mighty toad army is full of a bunch of asthmatics. We've barely started walking!" Sasha shot Captain Grime a look, expecting him to start yelling at the ten toads settling off to the side of the road and putting down weapons, unbuckling their armor. Surprisingly, Grime looked just as out of breath as the rest of them, although he was admittedly hiding it better.  
"We stop here until everyone is cooled off and ready to move again." Grime pulled out his water skin and splashed some on his face, then held it out to her. Sasha grabbed it and took a quick swig, splashing some water on her wound as well. She probably should have washed that out last night, before crying and sleeping in the dirt and sweating. Oh well, it's not like anyone would care if she got some face-eating infection.  
"What do you mean cooled off?" Sasha capped the skin and tossed it back in Grime's direction. "It's not like you can get heat stroke from a half hour of walking. It isn't even that warm yet! We should keep going before the sun gets too high."  
"We don't have any snails," Percy wheezed from a shady spot under a tree. "And we can't keep walking forever."  
"Unfortunately, Percy is right," Grime grumbled. "It will take at least a week to get to the nearest town."  
"It'll take longer if we stop every five minutes! How far away is the nearest town, anyways?"  
Sasha expected some daunting number, like a hundred miles. She knew from Marcy that old time human armies sometimes traveled a long ways. And also ate their boots. God, Sasha hoped she wouldn't have to eat her boot, she didn't even know if it was leather.  
Grime narrowed his good eye and looked into the distance. "Nearly thirty miles."  
"What? that's... not that far?" Sure, it wasn't great, and it would probably suck to walk a marathon carrying her sword and her dagger along with sweating all day in her leather(?) armor, but it wouldn't take a week. "Isn't that only, like, ten or twelve hours of walking?"  
Grime nodded grimly, like ten hours of walking was equivalent to fighting off a heron.  
"Is the road covered in snakes and vines or something?"  
"No, luckily. We've never had trouble traveling to Fenford before, and the road doesn't go through any particularly dangerous areas."  
"Okay, so why exactly will it take a week to walk there?"  
Grime stared at Sasha as if she was an idiot. hey, maybe she was getting better at reading toad facial expressions. "It will take ten hours of walking total."  
"So?"  
The 'you're an idiot' look got sharper. "Well, if we push it and travel for four miles a day, we'll get there in about a week. Do they not have math where you're from?"  
"We're only walking four miles a day? I mean, I get that everyone's a little banged up from the fight, but that seems way too slow. My grandmother walks four miles a day, and she's got arthritis!"  
"Well, I don't know what 'arthritis' is, but my toads are in top shape, the best fighting force in the valley, and even that much walking is pushing it."  
"Really? you can only walk four miles?"  
"Yes."  
"and what, you need to take a break to cool off after walking barely half of that?"  
"Yes. We'll get going again once the sun starts to set."  
"You need to take an eight hour break to recover from walking two miles!?"  
"Yes!" Grime glared at her. "I'd like to see you get farther on those spindly human legs without keeling over like a felled tree."  
"Please. I could walk farther carrying all of you on my back. I'm not some cross country jock that can run a marathon, but cheerleaders have more stamina than most people would think."  
Grime huffed and sat down, unbuckling his armor along with the rest of the toads and starting to get comfortable. He grabbed his water skin and took another swig, turning to the rest of the toads and electing to ignore his lieutenant.  
Sasha narrowed her eyes in frustration, then regretted that as it pulled painfully on the gash on her face. It was starting to bleed sluggishly again after getting some water poured on it. "Fine. If you all want to laze around, I'm going to go look for some food." She started to stomp off towards the treeline.  
"Wait. Have Braddock wrap your head up before you wander off."  
Braddock sat up a bit at the mention of her name and looked over at Grime, then at Sasha, before motioning her over. Sasha sighed and headed towards the tree Braddock was currently flopped under. The toad visibly winced once Sasha got closer, and she got a good look at the cut on her face.  
"That's pretty deep. If we were back at the tower I would stitch it up, but we'll have to work with what we have here." Braddock grabbed Sasha's wrist with a slimy hand and pulled her down to her level.  
Sasha sighed. "Just don't touch it. I'm not sure it's a good idea to get a bunch of toad mucus inside my face."  
Braddock nodded and grabbed one of the other toad's discarded cloaks, pulling her knife out of its sheath and starting to saw off a strip. "Do humans scar? I know some frogs and newts don't."  
"Yes, humans scar."  
"...Then that will probably leave a scar. sorry, hun." Braddock handed the ragged strip of cloth to Sasha and instructed her on how to tie it securely around her head. It probably looked ridiculous, like a blindfold that had slipped off of her eyes. "Normally you should boil the bandage, but we don't exactly have fire. or a pot to boil water in."  
"It's fine." There was an awkward silence.  
"Once we get to Fenford we'll need to find you a proper healer, to make sure it won't get infected."  
"Then we should get to Fenford faster." Sasha stood up and wiped some of Braddock's residual slime off of her hands. "Or I could get there and meet up with you later."  
Braddock looked confused. "How would you get there before us?"  
"I would just keep walking! Why are you all acting like that is so hard to do?"  
"Because it's thirty miles down the road? how far can humans walk in a day without overheating?"  
"Braddock, some people run thirty miles in a day for fun. I think I could make it there faster than the rest of you."  
Percy, who was leaning against a fallen log nearby and taking a drink of water, spat it out in surprise. "What!?"  
Braddock blinked, bewildered. "What!?"  
"Yeah, those people are crazy. don't they have anything better to do with their time? Honestly."  
"Humans can run thirty miles??"  
"If they train for it, yeah. Well, I think it's like twenty seven miles, but close enough. I could probably get there before the sun goes down by walking."  
All of the toads stared at her. It was actually pretty uncomfortable, having so many set of eyes on her at once, and definitely something she wasn't used to. Sure, after she had chased off a heron pretty much the whole army looked at her like a freak, but they didn't treat her like an alien once Grime vouched for her, and when she was in prison there really was only one toad around at a time, so this was still a fairly new experience.  
"Lieutenant." Grime walked slowly over to where she was and put a meaty hand on her shoulder. "If you can really get to Fenford in a day, then tell the mayor that Toad Tower has fallen, and that Captain Grime is on his way, so they can send wagons to pick us up."  
"Wow. You're really going to let me just wander off into the woods by myself? I'm flattered that you trust me, Grimesy."  
Grimes sighed. "Just don't get eaten."  
Sasha checked that her knife and dagger were still inside their scabbards and started heading back to the main road. "Do I get a map or something?"  
"Just follow the road south. It's not like the frogs have made other roads out here." Grimes unfastened his badge from his cloak and tossed it towards her, which she caught easily. "Show that to mayor Natterjack if he doesn't believe you."  
"Okay." Sasha stepped onto the dirt road. "Anything else?"  
"Really, don't get eaten. I don't want to replace you as my lieutenant with one of these buffoons."  
Sasha gave a casual salute to Grimes, a nod to Braddock, and then she turned southwards towards the distant town and started her long walk.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading! I, uh, really need to get to bed now. If anyone knows how to actually get the paragraphs to indent please let me know.


End file.
